"Two little blessings sent from above, twice the smiles, twice the love". This personalized 12"x12" Mixed Media wall canvas was made for April, a friend of my mom, who recently had twin boys, Caden and Corbin. It comes with a plane, train, elephant and pairs of booties...Plus lots of love.

Plane.

Train.

Elephant.

And booties.

This blue themed original art has its own homemade papers and its design is unique.

Here's where it all started. A sheet of homemade paper that I created with my Gelli Plate.

Cutting it to fit the canvas is important and yet so flexible when you have enough paper to use.

ModPodge is one of my favorite adhesives and sealants when it comes to most of my projects. Sometimes I like the Matte finish and other times I prefer the Gloss finish. So I make sure to always have both on hand.

The paper wraps all the way behind the canvas and will eventually be covered up with Kraft paper, giving it a professional looking backing. Like this with hanger and artist signature/date:

But you don't want to look at the back of this...so here's the front again:

After the paper was adhered to the canvas and drying, I started making the embellishments. I bought a new punch at the Scrapbook Expo in Marlborough last September from Epiphany Crafts. The punch is so easy to use and makes these really neat 3-dimensional, clear epoxy tickets. There are other shapes to pick from and I wish I had bought more. I'll have to place an online order with them.

Right out of the DCWV box, the train chipboard pieces were striped with pastel colors. I added Tim Holtz Distress inks to darken them up to better suit the color palette of this painting.

Same thing with the plane. It had a pattern that I liked but the colors were too light and needed some distressing.

The ribbon was hand braided by someone special to me, Diane, my sister-in-law's sister, who passed away too soon. She would have LOVED to know something she made was used and included in this gift of art. She had an eye for color and when I saw this colorful braided strand I knew it was perfect for this particular piece of art. A wooden pennant shape is on the tail of the braid. The photo above shows it before the ribbon was cut. I'm left with a small braided piece and plan to incorporate that into a future art project.

"Double the trouble...Twice the fun!" was stamped on ivory cardstock using Studio G alphabet rubber stamps with StazOn black ink.

The cardstock was cut to resemble a waving banner behind the plane and the hand-braided ribbon was shaped underneath it and glued down.

The train's striped original pattern still shows through the distress ink and gives it more character.

The names Caden and Corbin were hand-written with a black Faber Castell fine marker and then sealed with an epoxy bubble cap using my new ticket punch.

Those round metallic shining wheel hubcaps were made with Scribbles 3-D fabric paint.

Again, the plane's original pattern also shows through but by distressing it, the color has completely changed from it's original pastel look.

The Scribbles can be drawn on in any way. I chose to make the blades of the propeller shine and added a bunch of dots to the wings to make it appear like rivets.

The embellishments get set aside to dry and the canvas starts to be worked on.

Studio 49 rubber stamps were used with StazOn black ink in a few spots.

The word "Cute" was stamped on the side. In addition, "x2" was added since this picture below was taken. So it really reads "Cute X2" on this side panel.

You can see below that the black inked stamps are randomly scattered.

The black strips under the train are outline stickers made by Krazy Kreations. They have so many designs to pick from. When I originally selected the shape used for the train tracks, I thought wooden dowels. But then realized how many different ways you can use their stickers.

Stamping around the edges is important to give any canvas a completed look.

Now comes the block lettering. I was going for a cloud look as though the plane made a trail of words. To start, I line the stamps up where I need them to get a feel for the layout.

Here's the first line being laid out.

I place some light green Washi tape in random spots and color in a complimentary green hue using Tim Holtz Distress Crayon. These blend so nicely and just add more mediums into this painting.

I thought the white stripe going down the middle was too bold and the green distress crayon gave me the additional color I wanted in the background.

The white block print letters are embossed with VersaMark ink and embossing powder to appear raised from the surface. Below you can see the last couple of lines haven't been heated with the heat gun yet and aren't as bright white as the ones that have.

Did you notice I removed the embellishments to stamp the lettering? I only place those on for layout purposes and don't completely secure them until the end.

Pictured below it's almost completed. Just a few embellishments left to add on like the blue elephant and booties. By the way, those adorable pairs of baby blue booties are Jolee stickers that had metallic silver Scribbles fabric paint dotted for the lace rivets.

So many various types of mediums went into this Mixed Media project and as always, it was a blast to do.

Delivering it to April was half the fun in this art project experience. Since she's out on maternity leave, we met up with some of her friends, the "Chill Girls" at Chill Spa in Manchester, NH. We knew they'd be able to get this gift to her. And while we were there we spoiled ourselves and got a Peddie. What a great place with great people. Highly recommend it if you're in their area.

So if you want original artwork designed for your next need, whatever the occasion, please let us know. This is what us artists at Tamm's Marketplace love to do. Create art.

Thank you for reading my blog and enjoy your day.

"Sometimes I feel like my art brings people together and makes everyone smile. I always feel a positivity from it and try to share it with others as much as I can. (So smile)".